Stalwart Vale campaigner Joan Lawrie has a letter published in today’s Sunday Mercury complaining of last week’s damning article about Castle Vale. In her letter, Joan asks the Mercury to print some positive stories about Castle Vale. The Mercury has chosen an accompanying photograph of two beat bobbies, their backs to the camera, walking down a Castle Vale street, the foreground looking a little unkempt. (Castle Vale population 8,600)
Above the letter, and taking up three times as much space with an impressive photograph of an idyllic church, is a letter extolling the virtues of Eckington in Worcestershire. This was written in response to an article about village life that did not mention Eckington. (Eckington population:1,200)
2 Comments
March 9, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I can only congratulate Joan Lawrie in standing up proudly for Castle Vale. She identifies the negative attitude towards Castle Vale still harboured by The Sunday Mercury & The Birmingham Mail. On a daily basis the Birmingham Mail publishes its “North Birmingham News” but despite all the wonderful progress made in Castle Vale over the years it rarely gets a mention yet, when there is a negative item there is print space a plenty.
Suprisingly, there is a 22 page document published by the Birmingham Community Safety Partnership that assesed the safety in areas of North Birmingham over 2006/7 and that document clearly defines Castle Vale as being by far a much safer area than Greater Erdington,Kingstanding & Stockland Green but, even more surprisingly that document is ignored by the Sunday Mercury and the incumbent local Councillors who should be there fighting the cause for the Vale.
March 13, 2008 at 9:27 pm
good on you joan! the vale has had a bad press for years so its about time it changed, people need to do what joan has done and get in touch with the Sunday Mercury when there are positives to report then lets see if they print that! if they do not then you know they have a unfair attitude to the vale. i say we should all stop buying there nonsence newspaper then the rubbish they write cannot annoy us! one thing i will say that is dissapionting for me is the graffiti that is poping up across the estate, espesally on sainsburys. that has been there for weeks and is atracting more, this brings down the area and leves the esate open for criticism, the people of castle vale spend mucth money in that store i am surprised that for the good of the area it hasn’t been cleaned off, so if any one in sainsburys would like to comment to the vale mail i for one would be interested in reading it. never mind taste the diffrence, i want to see a diffrence!
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